Authority and Consent in Tudor England offers a series of essays from former students, colleagues, and other admirers of C.S.L. Davies, longtime fellow of early modern history at Wadham College, Oxford. Thirteen substantive essays range chronologically from the early Yorkist to the early Jacobean periods. While this festschrift never really achieves much thematic unity, it gives ample testimony to the broad ranges of Davies's professional interests. Three introductory chapters reveal Davies's idiosyncratic but effective style of engaging several generations of undergraduates and research students, and a final entry lists his publications over thirty-nine years.

If this collection never really rises above an assemblage of disparate essays, that does not denigrate the quality of much of the writing. Martin Ingram's "Regulating Sex in Pre-Reformation London" is a superb and fascinating advance in the understanding of how the state and church sent ambivalent signals in their efforts to regulate sexual morality. Jenny Wormald, in "English Kings and Uncooperative Scottish Rulers," writes a coherent account of the often clumsy efforts of the English to assert hegemonic control over their northern neighbors. Editor Steven Gunn looks at the care with which the Tudors organized, sponsored, and supervised public celebrations: his "War, Dynasty and Public Opinion in Early Tudor England" reminds us that public approval ratings are only a modem variant on a quite old theme. J.P.D. Cooper's rich essay "O Lorde Save the kyng: Tudor Royal Propaganda and the Power of Prayer" shows another form of "royal propaganda that. …